active 1611 William Barksted

“ Traditionally the storyhouse of minor epic source materials has been classical mythology, but inevitably, as suitable classical myths were exhausted, Renaissance poets turned to such sources as the Italian novella, or even—romantic heresy—to comparatively free invention. As if to compensate for these departures from orthodoxy, the later epyllionists leaned ever more heavily on allusions to classical mythology. Of the seven poems included here only three (Pyramus and Thisbe, Mirrha, and The Scourge) are based on a classical source (Ovid's [Pg XII] Metamorphoses) . ”

“ Maids must say nay, yet take when men do giue.
And now the sable horses of the night,
Haue drawne a mantle ore the siluer sky,
And all the stars doe shew their borrowed light,
Each breathing thing oprest with sleep doth ly
Saue Philomell, that sings of Terreus rape,
And Myrha plotting some incestious scape.
No rest at all she tooke within her bed,
The flames of Cupid burnt so in her brest,
And many a fansie comes into her head,
Which ouer-much her troubled soule opprest,
She doubts, she hopes thē feare doth make repaire,
Sh'l now attēpt, then shame doth bring despaire. ”

“ But if he chance to shute himselfe in blacke,
Then the earths people couet him to see,
As if he were some wondrous prodegie.
The worlds perfection, at the highest rated,
Was of a blacke confused thing created.
The sight, wherewith such wonders we behold,
The ground of it all darke, and blacke the mold.
Since then by blacke, perfection most is knowne,
Loue, if not for my sake, yet for your owne.
Mole gracing Venus neuer shewed so faire,
When as Vulcan the black-fac'd god was there,
As thou by me: the people, as we pace,
By my defects shall wonder at thy grace ”

“ The fire and water in one cloud contain'd;
And neither, yet, the mastery hauing got,
Being opposits, their furie's not restrain'd,
But do contend in strife and deadly warre,
Til scolding Thunder do pronounce the iarre.
Choose from thy woers some peculiar one,
Whose loue may fill the measure of thy hopes,
And balonize thy wanton sports alone,
Whose appetite with thy desire copes,
Youth will be frolicke in a Maidens bed,
Age is vnapt and heauy as the lead.
Youth hath his daliance and his kind embrace,
Euen as the Elmes incircled with the Vine ”

“ Whoever the author of Philos and Licia may have been, he was one who had thoroughly assimilated the conventions of the minor epic, especially those employed in Hero and Leander. [50] Unlike Page, whose imitation of Marlowe is for the most part blind, this author is skillful in working many of these conventions, and even particular words and phrases from other minor epics, into the context of his poem, somewhat as the bards of major epic are supposed to have done. ”

“ Not only has she brought together for the first time in one volume most of the extant Elizabethan minor epics, but in so doing, she has hastened the recognition that the minor epic, or "epyllion" as it has often been called in modern times, [1] is a distinctive literary genre as deserving of study as the sonnet, the pastoral, or the verse satire. ”

“ Hiren as treated by Barksted is also deficient in imagination of a high order, but is a more absorbing story than Mirrha. As signaled by his undertaking a more intricately rhymed stanza than he attempted in his first poem, Barksted's versification and composition in the second poem are superior. The poet achieves his most telling effects in Hiren not from invention but from the elaboration of such source materials in Painter as permit him to capture the distinctive glittering artifice of minor epic. ”

“ Lynche extends his debt to Lodge by establishing at the end of his poem a link between Ginevra and the Maiden he professes to love. But, whereas Lodge in the Envoy to his poem uses Scylla on the rocks as a horrible example of what may happen to unyielding maids, Lynche holds up Ginevra, who finally marries her lover, as an example to be followed by the poet's disdainful Diella of the accompanying sonnets (see p. 101) .
It would probably be impossible, even if it were desirable, for any given minor epic to follow all the conventions of the genre, or even all its alternative conventions. ”

“ And that the staining of a lawfull bed
Is youths best grace, and all his oaths and passion
Must still be taken on him as a fashion,
To busie idle heads: ôh, who can blame
If maids grow chary, since slie men want shame!
Say I should loue, and yet I know not why
I should make any such supposes, I;
Not that I am of such relentlesse temper,
Whose heart nor vowes, nor sighs, nor teeres can enter ”

“ Anon she wisht yong Pyramus was neere,
That she might bind loue in his golden haire,
And loue him too, but that she cald to mind,
That yong Adonis proued so vnkinde.
But Cupid came, his comming causd her hate them,
And in a heat, proud Venus gan to rate them.
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Seest thou my sonne (quoth she) and then she fround,
Those brattish elues, that dally on the ground?
They scorne my kingdome, and neglect my minde,
Contemne me as inconstant as the winde.
Then shoot (quoth she) and strike them so in loue,
As nought but death, their loue-dart may remoue. ”

“ I pardon freely what thou speak'st amisse,
Knowing it sprung from loue, and thy subiection:
Your eies shall see me rob the earth of blisse,
A sight too sad, all heauen strike men with terror,
And in that act cast such reflexion. ”

“ His catalog of the senses (Stanzas 75-79) serves as an example of this power of embellishment at its best.
Page's Amos and Laura, like Gale's Pyramus and Thisbe, falls into bathos near the end when Amos, in an extended comparison, likens Laura's refusal to cure his love wound to an avaricious doctor's refusal to set a poor man's leg. Page's failure as a poet is not a result of temporary lapses, as here, but of his [Pg XXVI] inability to invent significant conflict. ”

“ Despite its oblique opening and occasionally awkward style, Barksted's Mirrha is a poem of more power than Dom Diego. Among its more affecting passages are a vivid portrayal of a "gloomy gallerie" lined with portraits of Mirrha's suitors (p. 126) and an inventive account of Hebe's spilling the nectar that rained spices on Panchaia (p. 147) . Barksted's early and unqualified recognition of Shakespeare's greatness, and his humbly accurate assessment of his own limited powers, compared to "neighbor" Shakespeare's, are quite disarming. ”

“ To attend the lustre of so bright a haire,
Whose beames like bright Arachnes web cōposed
Taught Pallas a new enuie, now vnlosed,
hiding her face, yet making it seeme rarer,
as blazing Commets traine makes the star fairer.
Dispaire that teacheth holy ones to die,
when as affliction ministers her part:
Had breathing now in Mirrha, and well nie,
Like Venus, made her graspe a flaming heart.
Cupid was borne at Etna, a hot sprite,
Whose violence takes edge off from delight.
For men deepe louing, oft themselues so waste,
that proffer'd dainties, they want power to taste. ”

“ Nor couch our secretst loue in shew of hate:
But if we like, must be compassionate.
Say that thy teere-discoloured cheeke should moue
Relenting pitie and that long liu'd loue.
If ere thy faith should alter, and become
Stranger to that which now it oft hath sworne,
How were I wrapt in woe! No time to be
Would euer end my datelesse miserie.
Ay me (quoth Philos) what man can despise
Such amourous looks, sweet tongues, & most sweet eies?
Or who is glutted with the sight of heauen,
Where still the more we looke, the more is seene? ”

“ Later in the story Mirrha meets a satyr named Poplar (unknown to Ovid) , who makes free with her (pp. 148-155) . As punishment for such goings on in Diana's sacred grove, he is to be metamorphosed into the tree that now bears his name (even as Mirrha is subsequently transformed into the tree that produces myrrh) .
The Scourge of Venus, though following Ovid's story more closely than Mirrha, expands Golding by more than 600 lines, to a little more than the average length of the Elizabethan minor epic. ”

“ Till breathles now, he breath'd into her loue,
Who scorn'd to take possession by degrees,
No law with her strange passion, will he proue,
But hauing interest, scorn'd one inch to leese,
Cupid, sheele set thee free withouten fees.
But though his wings she well nie set on fire,
And burn'd the shaft, that first her brest did moue,
Yet Cupid would be Lord of her desire.
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Tis sayd, Aurora blushes euery morne,
For feare that Titan should her fault espy,
And blushes so did Hirens cheekes adorne,
Fearing least Mahomet perceiu'd her eye.
Louers are blind, and what could he espy. ”

“ The Phlegmaticke is like the water cold,
The Cholericke wants sap, like fire dry,
And Melancholy, as age, is dull and old,
But in the Sanguin moist warme iuice doth lie,
Whose beauty feeds the eye with sweete delight,
The rest do rather feare then please the sight.
What pleasure can a sterne grim face affoord,
A swarfie colour or rough shagged haire,
Or Rauen blacke? beleeue me at a word,
They are too blame that do despise the faire:
They please the eye, prouoke dull appetite,
Resemble Gods, and do the minde delight. ”

“ Now here, then there; now back againe, then thither
That whirle-windes meeting (roaring out aloud)
Make watry mountaines shew the ship each cloud:
Then with such fury they descend the deepe,
From top of triple-Cedar-mountaines steepe,
As of the Seas rich orientall shew,
Against their wils they take a counterview.
So fares his minde, which tossed to and fro,
Sometimes doth ioy, and other times is woe:
Sometimes from depth ascends into the ayre,
And though he hope, he hides it with despayre.
So long with feruent zeale he mou'd his sute,
Onely for want of words his tongue was mute. ”

“ And comming found the mantle she let fall,
Which now he kist, he would haue kist her too,
But that her nimble footmanship said no.
He found the robe, which quickly he might find,
For being light, it houered in the winde:
VVith which the game-some Lion long did play,
Till hunger cald him thence to seeke his prey:
And hauing playd, for play was all his pleasure,
He left the mantle, Thisbes chiefest treasure.
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Yet ere he left it, being in a mood,
He tore it much, and stain'd it ore with bloud,
Which done, with rage he hasted to his prey,
For they in murther passe their time away. ”

“ As well as echoing Marlowe's Hero and Leander and Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis in particular words and phrases, these poems reveal a much more general indebtedness to what Professor Bush has aptly called "the twin peaks of the Ovidian tradition in England." [27] The majority employ one of two [Pg XVII] prosodic patterns—the Marlovian couplet popularized in Hero and Leander, or the six-line stanza used by Lodge but soon after taken over by Shakespeare in Venus and Adonis and thereafter associated with his poem. ”

“ For permission to reproduce Philos and Licia (for the first time) , Mirrha, and Hiren, I am much indebted to the Bodleian Library; for permission to reproduce Dom Diego and Ginevra [Pg XXVII] I am similarly indebted to the Trustees of the British Museum. I am also under heavy obligation to the Folger Library for permission to reprint Pyramus and Thisbe, Amos and Laura, and The Scourge of Venus (1613) , all for the first time. ”

“ He has Venus, enraged at seeing these youngsters engaging in child-like rather than erotic play, command Cupid to shoot his arrows at them "As nought but death, their love-dart may remove" (Stanza 8) . There is no counterpart to this opening scene in Golding's Ovid.
Similarly Barksted departs at length from Ovid in the beginning of his tale, where the Renaissance poet undertakes to explain why Mirrha is cursed with love for her father. While she listens to the sweet, sad songs of Orpheus, Cupid, [15] falling in love with her, courts her and is rejected ”

“ The palefac'd Mirrha sat like guiltie spright,
fore the infernall iudge, yet did not see
Diana great, for dull are mortalls sight,
(and all inuisible is chastitie)
But heard a voice as she was vanishing,
saying defild maide, doost wonder at this thing?
O Mirrha ere my crescents beautie change,
thou shalt be turn'd into a shape as strange. ”

“ That tis thy beautie which hath tann'd me so.
Thy dangling tresses, if compar'd with mine,
Glitter like heauen with lustre from thine eine:
And those immortall eies, which like the Sunne,
The lookers on with his bright rayes doth burne,
If mine be nie, will seeme to shine more cleere,
Than glittering Venus in her Hemisphere.
So thy rich worth, compared with my pelfe,
Will in excelling others match thy selfe:
Euen as Merchant that hath out at sea
[Pg 10] His wealth, the hope of his posteritie,
And hauing heard by flying newes, at home,
That all is lost by some tempestuous storme ”

“ Note but the lustre sparkling from her eyes.
Your subiects hearts, against your life are steeld:
Her tongue is musick, that strikes wonder dumbe.
Your people struck with warre by millions dyes:
If she but frowne then I shall ouercome.
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Shall I feare this worlds losse enioying heauen,
Or thinke of danger when an Angel guards me?
Can greater glory to my life be giuen,
Then her maiesticke beauty that rewards me?
Nay is not he of happinesse bereau'd,
That neuer saw her face nor heard her voyce,
And those that win our loue, most regards me,
Confesse that we are godlike in our choice. ”

“ Now is his soule at rest.
This night he counts the end of his renowne,
The sence of feeling, she feeles by his power,
And like a subiect yeelds to his request,
Whilest Mahomet a virgin doth deflower.
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Now feares this flower deflowr'd his loue will waine,
Wishing the lustfull act had bin vndoon,
The pleasure cannot counteruaile the paine,
For still she thinkes with torment ioy is woon,
His loue growes full, she gets it now with gaine:
He like a ring of gold insets his iewell,
But fearing of his force she should disdaine,
Till sighes and kisses did inflame Loues fewell. ”